5 Threats to the Efficacy and Efficiency of Your Air Conditioner

You’ve just torn open the utility bill from the city of Cleburne, Texas, and found disappointment. Despite your efforts to conserve electricity and live efficiently, your utility bill just isn’t where you want it. If your utility bills have been rising, your air conditioner may be to blame. Target these five threats to air conditioner efficiency to build a more comfortable and efficient home:

Neglecting Professional AC Maintenance

Few things will help your HVAC system more than professional maintenance, and few things will harm it more than neglecting it. If you’re not scheduling an HVAC tune-up twice a year, the minor wear that happens to any cooling system can become costly damage that also kicks up your utility costs. Through regular maintenance visits, our professional service technicians can mitigate those minor issues and prevent the stress that neglecting them could cause. As a result, you’ll lower your energy cooling costs and prevent costly breakdowns.

Air Leaks

Your cooling system works hard to supply your living space with cold air on hot summer days. However, your home probably isn’t perfectly sealed. As a result, conditioned air can escape through leaks in your home’s thermal envelope.

These leaks may form around windows, doors, ductwork and insulation. As cool air leaves the home, warm air enters. That transfer forces your air conditioner to work harder. That means your home won’t only feel less comfortable. Your AC system will endure more strain and damage.

Seal air leaks around windows and doors with caulk and weatherstripping. Roll out some insulation in unfinished areas, like your attic. Seek help from our team to determine if you have leaks in your ducts.

Inefficient Cooling Habits

You can’t blame your air conditioner for all the inefficiency in your home. How you run your cooling system may also become a threat to AC efficiency. The harder you push your system to keep your home cool, the more strain your system will experience. The further the temperature inside your home is from the temperature outdoors, the harder your system will work. Instead of keeping your living space at 68 degrees all day, program your thermostat to cool your home to 75 degrees while you’re home and 80 while you’re away. As a result, you’ll lower cooling costs.

Poor Indoor Air Quality

A dirty home is more than something to be self-conscious of when guests come over. Poor indoor air quality can also reduce your air conditioner’s efficiency. The more cluttered your living space, the more restricted the airflow, which forces your system to work harder. Dust, dirt and other particles can also contaminate your AC’s indoor air handler and worsen efficiency. Maintain high indoor air quality by:

• Cleaning your home often.
• Removing debris around your indoor air handler and outdoor compressor.
• Scheduling professional maintenance.

Ineffective System Size

Your air conditioner’s size is important in determining its energy efficiency. The design of your living space, from square footage and the shape of rooms to the placement of doors and windows, contributes to the "load requirement" — a measurement of the energy necessary to cool your home. Service technicians install AC systems according to those load requirements. But it’s possible that yours is the wrong size.

A system that’s too small for your load requirement won’t maintain efficient comfort. A system that’s too large will cool your living space so quickly that it spends most of its time in its inefficient start-up stage. Both problems will lead to lower efficiency and higher utility costs. Our team can help you find out if your system is sized efficiently for the comfort needs of the home.

Target these threats at their sources to preserve your air conditioner and enjoy a more comfortable summer with lower utility costs. To improve energy efficiency with professional HVAC maintenance, call Airmasters AC, Heat, Plumbing & Electrical at 817-506-4862.

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